Bell, Haws Dominate CARS Tour Orange Blossom 300
ROUGEMONT, NC (April 18, 2015) – Brayton Haws and Christopher Bell both put on clinics in their respective divisions and drove to victory in the Late Model Stock and Super Late Model portions of the CARS Racing Tour Orange Blossom 300, respectively, on Saturday night. For both drivers, the Orange County Speedway triumphs were their first wins of 2015 in the newly-formed tour.
Late Model Stock Recap:
Deac McCaskill proved once again he was the man to beat by winning the pole for the second straight race. Brayton Haws started alongside on the front row.
Much like the season opener at Southern National, McCaskill quickly got out to an early lead, but it would be much shorter-lived as Haws took command before the one-sixth mark. Shortly thereafter, Todd Gilliland, the winner of the season opener and series point leader, found himself involved in an incident with Stacy Puryear and numerous other contenders. The No. 98G of Gilliland was done for the night while others including Tyler Ankrum and Michael Fose were damaged significantly.
After the accident, the only challenge Haws would have to contend with the rest of the night was from Myatt Snider. Snider made several attempts to pass Haws, but could never finish the move, drawing even on multiple occasions. Following a late restart, Snider dropped a valve in the engine and was relegated to third at the checkered flag behind Haws and Justin Crider. The win was just the second Late Model Stock victory in Haws’ short career.
“We were saving tires a ton in the beginning of the race, and I was rolling the corners a lot faster and that allowed me to get by him (McCaskill) for the lead,” Haws said in victory lane, “My team, Hawk-McCall Motorsports, had a great piece all weekend, and this is just an awesome win for this year.”
Super Late Model Recap:
Cole Timm, the winner of the inaugural CARS Tour race at Southern National three weeks ago, continued his hot streak by claiming the pole at Orange County. Quin Houff and Christopher Bell qualified third. However, Bell missed driver introductions and would be sent to the rear of the 30-car field to start the race.
Timm chose the outside lane for the initial start and after completing lap 1, Houff lost the control under Timm while fighting for the top spot in turn 1 and triggered a 10-car accident that involved several contenders including Clay Rogers, Brandon Setzer and Steve Wallace.
Recovering from his penalty, Christopher Bell quickly began to work his way through the field from the back. By lap 13 he had charged all the way to 6th and on lap 41 he moved around Dominique Van Wieringen for the race lead. Bell, who picked up his first career Super Late Model win at Orange County Speedway last fall, dominated the remainder of the 150 lap contest to take his first career CARS Racing Tour win. Bubba Pollard, Kyle Grissom, Timm, and Chris Davidson rounded out the top five.
“I just got an awesome car underneath me. I can just roll around at my own pace and save tires like a champ.” said Bell following his win. “We had a rough day yesterday after I tore up the other car and these guys fixed the power steering issue on this one.
“That was definitely everything I had on the restarts,” he continued about the multiple restarts the race saw late in the running. “I was going as hard as I could in order to try and get some gap in between us. (Crew Chief) Bond (Suss) would read me lap times and I would just try to match the lap times of what the guys were running behind me. Hats off to my guys and thank you to the fans for coming out here.”
LATE MODEL STOCK FINISH
1. 41 Brayton Haws 150L
2. 7 Justin Crider
3. 2 Myatt Snider
4. 16S RD Smith
5. 50 Jamey Caudill
6. 27 Tommy Lemons
7. 44 Justin Johnson
8. 31 Thomas Beane
9. 16 Jeff Oakley
10. 08 Deac McCaskill
11. 07 Clint King
12. 77 Blake Stallings
13. 59 Roddey Sterling
14. 88 Chris Davis
15. 88D Doug Barnes, Jr.
16. 23 Donnie Puryear, Jr.
17. 28 Chris Hudspeth
18. 88T Robert Tyler
19. 12C Garrett Campbell -3
20. 63 Christian PaHud -3
21. 1 Trent Barnes -25
22. 99 Mike Darne -26
23. 17 Stacy Puryear -47
24. 98 Stefan Parsons -50
25. 54 Michael Fose -115
26. 12M Austin McDaniel -123
27. 98G Todd Gilliland -127
28. 58 Tyler Ankrum -127
29. 34 Matt Waltz -129
30. 12 Ryan Wilson DNS
SUPER LATE MODEL FINISH
1. 51 Christopher Bell 150L
2. 83 Bubba Pollard
3. 31 Kyle Grissom
4. 57 Cole Timm
5. 14D Chris Davidson
6. 6 Brandon Setzer
7. 2 Trevor Noles
8. 4 Brandon Lynn
9. 77 Zane Smith
10. 47 Chris Fontaine
11. 25 Stephen Leicht
12. 00 Lucas Ransone -1
13. 17 Quin Houff -1
14. 33 Roger Lee Newton -1
15. 24 Richard Gould -1
16. 8N John Hunter Nemechek -9
17. 51N Stephen Nasse -23
18. 12 Harrison Burton -49
19. 67 Clay Jones -49
20. 40 Grant Galloway -58
21. 16 Lucas Jones -58
22. 5V Dominique VanWieringen -64
23. 18 Kiel Spaulding -77
24. 56 Gus Dean -86
25. 2R Clay Rogers -104
26. 66 Steve Wallace -124
27. 29W Matthew Wragg -129
28. 71R Nick Robinson -137
29. 54 Matt Craig -149
30. 2L Robby Lyons -149
Sources: Chris Ragle/CARS PR